Crackers, the big-butted blonde and quite near-sighted cat in this household, has a different strategy for monsters -- since she doesn't bark. She does what cats do -- crouch down and watch. But she's never quite sure what she sees until she smells it and she smells it best if she puts her nose on it, which monsters don't let a cat do. So where the trapdoor to the crawlspace is open -- a monster-hole if there ever was one -- she creeps up slowly and waves her nose: spiders, check; dirt, check; pipes, check; wiring, check -- wait! What was that? Monster blood? Monster body-odor? Monster bad-breath?

Normally Crackers is a fairly phlegmatic cat, though this morning she brought me a relatively unmauled vole for my breakfast. I thanked her but decided on raspberries and Oatie O's instead. She was a little miffed.

Now Squibbie, when she's not on patrol for practical stuff like cats and dogs, wastes little time thinking about monsters. If there were one, she'd just go down in the crawl space and drag it out by the neck.